


Trippingly on the Tongue

by Monsterunderkilt



Series: The Manse [15]
Category: Actor RPF, Celebrities - Fandom, RPF - Fandom, Real Person Fanfic - Fandom, Real Person Fiction, William Shakespeare - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26805853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monsterunderkilt/pseuds/Monsterunderkilt
Summary: Sir Ken and I muster up a lot of tension... in bed 😉Featuring some verse from “Love’s Labour’s Lost” by William Shakespeare
Series: The Manse [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1209447
Kudos: 1





	Trippingly on the Tongue

“See?” Sir says with a satisfied sigh. “Isn’t it just a bit more relaxing now that we’ve relieved all that sexual tension?”

I blink down at the gravity-well the Riverside Complete Shakespeare makes in my lap, then I stare at him. We’re both in bed, merely reading before lights out. Me with my plays, he with his sonnets. His eyes never leave the page he’s on, even as he pushes his glasses back up his nose. I continue to eyeball him until he finally takes notice and looks over at me. 

“So silently reading in bed to classical music was too arousing before?” I ask.

He nods matter-of-factly. “Being within inches of a lovely woman diligently poring over Bloom and Goddard and Garber essays every night… it’s ummm… titillating.”

I snort. “Well how do you think it was for me? Watching you unbutton your shirts and quote things all the time?” I roll my eyes as I reach over and squeeze his thigh. “The tension will never go away. Not as long as I can breathe and watch that wooing scene at the end of  _ Henry V. _ ”

Kenny places his hand over mine, interlocking our fingers. “You’re too much for my ego, Madam.”

“ _ You’re  _ too much for your ego, Ken.”

He smiles and picks up my hand to kiss it, then we both return to our books. Three, maybe four minutes go by and I pipe up.

“So Goddard suggests that Shakespeare must have believed that imagination is the child of death because across so many of his plays in so many contexts, characters don’t achieve their greatest insights until something they love is destroyed or appears to be destroyed.”

Ken narrows his eyes, focussing only on his thoughts. “I suppose that theory has merit… the first thing that comes to my mind is how Romeo only truly understood his feelings when he thought Juliet was dead, and Othello arguably loved Desdemona more right after he murdered her.”

“And Leontes only appreciated Hermione after she was turned into a statue.”

“Lear never adored Cordelia more than when she was gone.”

“And Hamlet proclaimed to the whole world how much he loved Ophelia as he jumped into her damn grave.”

Ken tilts his head and begins wringing his hands. “Well, I rather thought he knew his feelings for her from the start.”

“But Ken,” I say, touching his shoulder. “If Hamlet would have eaten a crocodile for her, why couldn’t he forgive her for following her dumb dad’s orders to lie to him?” 

Sir blinks at me and takes off his glasses. “Cait, you yourself always vehemently advocate that Hamlet was only putting on his antic disposition and was never truly mad. He treated her badly because he had to put on a show for Claudius and Polonius. I’m sure he despaired that he had to react in a manner that was guaranteed to upset Ophelia, but he had no choice but to throw Claudius off the scent to make him think he was merely lovesick.”

“But did he really know anyone was watching from behind the arras? The text leaves that open. He could have been so stressed out from his mad acting that having one more problem on his plate—Ophelia’s questionable loyalty—pushed him over the edge and he simply didn’t want to believe he couldn’t still entrust her during this tragic time in his life.”

“No, it was  _ all _ an act and when he flung himself into her grave in a fit of toil, that was the truest feeling he ever had because he didn’t imagine his plan would have that level of collateral damage.”

“But even when Goddard uses the Ophelia example, he adds a little footnote that it’s up for debate whether Hamlet’s feelings were genuine.”

“Oh I’ll tell you whose feelings are genuine,” Sir says huskily.

In one synchronised motion, we slam our books closed and attack each other with kisses, indulging in a fumbling teenage snog that drives us both crazy and into exhaustion…

I rest my head on Ken’s chest and count his heartbeats as they slow down to a resting rate. His fingers trail down my spine like a trickle of warm honey. I close my eyes and feel goosebumps tighten my entire left side.

“So after an entire year of memorising speeches, you only really remember two of them fully by heart?”

I sigh and tickle his side, eliciting a surprised giggle. “I’m out of practice, Ken. I’m not an actor, Sir. I can recall a few more with proper prompting.”

“Which ones are set down in the book and volume of your brain unmixed with baser matter?” he asks, squeezing my shoulder. 

I prop myself up on my elbow and turn my head to gaze at him, yawning. “Hamlet’s third act soliloquy has been there for many ages, so that’s a given. But I also have a particular fondness for the one of Berowne’s in  _ Love’s Labours Lost _ . You know… the one you came so close to reciting in your film but did a Gershwin song instead.”

Ken frowns. “Sorry to have let you down.”

“I would have loved to have seen you perform that one.”

“Was my singing and dancing so bad?”

“No, you were fine. You were adorable. I was disappointed, but then you did that iambic pentameter tap dance business which was perfection, so it kinda made up for it.”

He smiles at me and kisses my temple, whispering against my sweaty skin: “I’ll dance for you again if you speak for me.”

I wink at him and blush, completely not prepared to perform for Sir Ken of all people. “It a tongue twister. I’ll fuck it up.”

“I’ll bet you know it… trippingly on the tongue.”

He’s not wrong. I do know it in my sleep, and often employ it when I need to trick my brain into focussing away from anxiety-inducing thoughts before bed:

“Why? All delights are vain, but that most vain

Which, with pain purchas’d, doth inherit pain:

As, painfully to pore upon a book

To seek the light of truth, while truth the while

Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.

Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile;

So ere you find where light in darkness lies,

Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.

Study me how to please the eye indeed

By fixing it upon a fairer eye,

Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,

And give him light that it was blinded by.

Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun,

That will not be deep search’d with saucy looks;

Small have continual plodders ever won,

Save base authority from others’ books.

These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights,

That give a name to every fixed star,

Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

Too much to know is to know nought but fame;

And every godfather can give a name.”

Ken can’t help himself and claps heartily, a big stupid grin on his face. “See? You’ve got it in you!”

I blush so hard I probably look like a young male cardinal bird. 

Sir hugs me to his side, kissing my hair as he sighs and closes his eyes. “Do you have any other favorites?”

“Can you recite that shit Henry V does the night before battle? The speech that begins ‘Upon the King?”

“Of course, sweetheart, of course.”

  
  
  



End file.
